Uses the camera on a device to annotate and interact with the surrounding landscape
Skyline, a new way to explore the outdoors using augmented reality (AR), has today been launched on Android by ViewRanger, a free outdoor discovery app.
Using AR technology, Skyline uses the camera on a phone or tablet to annotate and interact with the surrounding landscape. Designed to help people explore with greater confidence wherever they are, Skyline is free with the latest version of the ViewRanger app. It is available now on Google Play, having launched in the Apple App Store in November.
Inspired by Alfred Wainwright’s pictorial guides to the English Lake District mountains which include hand-drawn illustrations of hiking routes, Skyline identifies peaks, towns, lakes, cliffs, bays and even glaciers up to 20 miles away through a phone or tablet’s camera and overlays their names across the landscape. When navigating a pre-planned route, waypoints and directional arrows also appear, offering an accurate and enhanced navigational experience.
Craig Wareham, ViewRanger co-founder and CEO said: “Skyline tells you what you’re looking at and shows you which way to travel, fundamentally changing the way in which you use maps and how you interact with the landscape around you.
“When we started ViewRanger, our vision was always to place map information directly into the landscape around the user. Now, a little over 60 years since Wainwright’s first guidebook for the Lake District fells was published, Skyline makes that a reality. It’s ready for anyone to use on their next walk, hike, bike, or visit to a park.”
To use Skyline, download and launch the latest ViewRanger app update, tap the Skyline button on the map screen, and pan the landscape in the modified camera view to transform your next outdoor adventure.
Like the ViewRanger app, Skyline works without phone or data signals by using the GPS chip and sensors built into mobile devices to understand your location and position. It also uses offline maps that can be downloaded and saved to your device before leaving home.
Skyline identifies 9 million points and works across 80% of the globe, essentially everywhere except the northern and southern Polar regions.
Mike Brocklehurst, CTO and co-founder of ViewRanger said: “It’s an exciting time for ViewRanger and we’ve already had a very positive reaction from people using Skyline in the US, Japan, Australia, France, Italy and the UK. Now we’re excited to hear what outdoor enthusiasts around the world think of it.”
